June 4, 2014 -- Professor Ann Carlson is cited in a Los Angeles Times editorial on the EPA's greenhouse gas rules.

"The EPA sought to use its authority to maximize flexibility and cost-effectiveness," said Ann Carlson, faculty co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. "This is about as decentralized as the federal government could be."

Carlson acknowledged that the EPA wandered into new legal territory with its reliance on a rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act. "There's a very big question about what the statutory language in 111(d) actually allows the EPA to do," she said. Yet Supreme Court rulings, including a recent one upholding the EPA's cross-border pollution limits, require courts to give considerable deference to the agency's interpretation of the law, Carlson said.